Pros and Cons

I'm about to go for another bike ride. This new activity opens up the island for me in such a fantastic way. It means that I don't have to use my car at all to access the other side, nor do I have to spend 3 hours each way walking to get to a beach I want to visit or a trailhead.

I'm really grateful today for having so much energy and being able to enjoy time outside again.
I don't want to dwell on dark memories, but it's really important for me to remember all of the 'pros and cons' from the peak of my anorexia.
Chilled to the core at all times. Reptilian, practically. A hot drink would flush heat through my whole body for 5 minutes, then dissipate. I wore toe warmers under 3 layers of winter socks and still regularly lost all feeling in my toes. My cheeks and neck were covered in thick fuzzy down that stood on end to keep me warm. I couldn't sit on a hard chair or get into a bathtub because it was so painful for my tailbone and spine. I forgot things almost immediately. I had no creative thought. I was exhausted by climbing a staircase. I forgot how to walk properly, my muscles seemed to jerk my legs forward in a funny way. My ears were always blocked. My feet were always blue. My lips had no fat to support them and I looked years older. I felt completely asexual and alien. My hair was thinning. My digestion stopped working. I had to take naps wrapped in blankets and with a hot water bottle on my chest many times a day. I couldn't sleep at night because the body prioritizes eating over sleep, and I tossed in an agony of hunger and nightmares. My muscles were wasting, and even getting out of the car was hard. I couldn't stand and sing anymore. I was faint and foggy and had chest pains that really scared me. Leg cramps, headaches, terrible terrible endless thirst, paranoia, shame, desperation, and fear of death. Always the constant cruel circulating voice of my disease. That is the short version of a very long list of cons.

These things are gone now. I'm going out to ride my bike. I have a very long list of pros for my remission, my new state of health. The main con is that I am embarrassed and often humiliated by having gained so much weight. I ate enough to feed a continent to put on my 40 or 50 lbs of healthy life-giving flesh. I feel terribly vulnerable out there in the world. Certain that everyone is thinking, "Well, yes, you needed to gain some weight, but you've overdone it." I feel encased in a giant marshmallow. But this is my body, my temporary home, a dwelling that I am so grateful to have. It is getting healthier by the day and I know on some level that it is not ugly. Not grotesque. Not repulsive. Not off-putting. This really is daily work... mental pathways do not get changed by going down them again and again. I'm bushwacking, carving new paths. It's exciting and exhausting.

This is the week of legs. Short skirts and lots of sunshine. Legs, my most-maligned body parts, most hidden and most blamed, are seeing the light! Come on legs, we're going outside. I am so so so grateful for you, and I am going to learn to find you beautiful one of these days.

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